Howick and Pakuranga Times : Howick and Pakuranga Times Monday August 4

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20 — Howick and Pakuranga Times, Monday, August 4, 2014
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CRAZY RIDE: Getting to play premier club rugby came as a big enough
surprise for Pakuranga United’s Mitchell Hunt, let alone featuring in
international tournaments on Twickenham and in Singapore.
➤ page 19
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Lifetime in Kiwi sport recalled
LABOUR OF LOVE: New Zealand decathlon great and veteran sports reporter Roy
Williams has compiled his vast experiences into Sports Crazy. Times photo Daniel Silverton
By Daniel Silverton
SPORT has framed every facet of
former athlete and journalist Roy
Williams’ life.
Williams’ obsession with sport,
from his athletics accomplishments
to his career as a respected reporter,
is chronicled in Sports Crazy: A Life-
time in Kiwi Sport.
Starting with his upbringing along-
side one of New Zealand’s greatest
track and field stars, Sports Crazy is
part memoir, part tribute and part
manual for sporting success.
“When I would tell these stories
from the past, fellow sports people
would say, ‘you should write a book’,”
Williams told the Times.
“I tossed it over in my mind and
thought these are worth telling. Not
only because of mine and Yvette’s
sporting careers, but also the adven-
tures I’ve had covering Olympic and
Commonwealth Games.
“A lot of the stories have never
been told.”
Williams is the younger brother of
Pakuranga’s Yvette Corlett (nee Wil-
liams), the first Kiwi woman to win
an Olympic gold medal at Helsinki in
1952 and four-time Commonwealth
Games gold medallist.
Yvette’s ability and status in New
Zealand sport were the initial lens
through which Williams viewed the
world, and also how it viewed him.
As Peter Heidenstrom explains:
‘When Yvette Williams won her
Olympic title, Roy Williams ceased
to exist. Instead he became Yvette’s
little brother.
‘What drove him was quite a simple
thing but it had a profound effect... he
set out to become his own person.’
With Yvette being a defining part
of Williams’ life, Sports Crazy gives
a close-up and behind-the scenes
account of her amazing sports
exploits.
“I itemise very clearly all the hard
work she would do and sacrifices she
would make,” says Williams.
Part of the motivation for the book
was the desire to document the life of
an athlete in the amateur era, which
Williams says would be inconceiv-
able to someone from the modern
sporting environment.
“On top of training three times a
day, Yvette had to work a 37.5 hour
week. There were no weight training
facilities, so she used concrete blocks
and sandbags for resistance.
“To represent NZ at the Helsinki
Olympics in 1952 she had to buy the
material and zip and make her own
shorts.
“There is no substitute for hard
work. I think [the book] is quite inspi-
rational for the next generation.”
Williams quickly emerged from his
sibling’s shadow to forge his own ath-
letics feats, culminating in 15 years
competing internationally.
Sports Crazy provides the back
story to his time as a regional and NZ
basketball representative, then in the
decathlon, the discipline he became a
champion in and for.
His many highs, including 14 NZ
decathlon titles and record holder
from 1956 to 1984, Commonwealth
Games gold medallist in Jamaica in
1966 having campaigned for the event
to be included in the programme, and
being named NZ Sportsman of the
Year, are outlined.
So is the major disappointment of
his competitive tenure, missing out
on selection for four consecutive
Olympics.
“I was heartbroken so many times
missing out on the Olympic Games,
I felt I had to tell the inside story
behind it,” says Williams.
“I’ve had a crack at a few people.”
His move into journalism allowed
Williams to stay involved in sport,
and he applied the same values of
hard work, respect, loyalty and integ-
rity to the trade as he did on the track
and field.
Williams was an athlete and sports
fan first though, and his loyalty was
unashamedly to fellow sports people
than to any journalistic exposés.
“One of my proudest moments
was covering the 1972-73 All Blacks
[northern hemisphere] tour, which
was very difficult,” says Williams.
“But I got along with all of the play-
ers, unlike several of the NZ media,
because every morning when they
trained I would go and do my own
workout.
“I think the fact I had competed at
the top level, I had empathy for the
players, because I knew the training
they had to go through and the inju-
ries they had. I had been down that
track.
“It was stressful writing two or
three stories a day, but it was very
enjoyable.
“Guys like Tane Norton, Ian Kirk-
patrick, Bryan Williams and Sid
Going are still lifelong friends.”
Sports Crazy is filled with interest-
ing anecdotes from the many pivotal
sporting moments Williams covered
in his 25 years at the Auckland Star,
such as the Keith Murdoch affair, the
terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympics
and the 1981 Springbok tour.
“My late wife and I, and a couple
of other All Blacks, had a beer with
Murdoch five minutes before it hap-
pened,” says Williams.
“So I was Johnny on the spot.
The book gives a very good account
of that incident which has become
rugby folklore.
“I’vehadacrackatafewofmy
Auckland Star bosses as well,” he
says.
Fittingly for a man who has been
involved in a plethora of sports in
almost every role, Sports Crazy also
touches on a wide variety of topics,
including the development of Mt
Smart Stadium, the history of NZ
sports funding, the introduction of
triathlon to NZ and has Williams’
thoughts on mental toughness.
Williams’ experiences as the
brother of a pioneering sporting
superstar, an elite competitor, and
seasoned reporter, are told with the
inimitable energy he showed in the
athletics arena, which make Sports
Crazy a thoroughly enjoyable read
and a unique resource for Kiwi sports
fans.